Liquid Web vs InMotion (2024)

PJ Fancher

By: PJ Fancher

PJ Fancher

PJ is a professional web developer with more than 20 years of experience. His background began with writing small web applications using Perl, PHP, and MySQL in 1998. He has well-rounded experience with all aspects of web development, from server and database configuration to scripting, styling, design, and SEO.

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Editor: Lillian Castro

Lillian Castro

Lillian brings more than 30 years of editing and journalism experience to our team. She has written and edited for major news organizations, including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the New York Times, and she previously served as an adjunct instructor at the University of Florida. Today, she edits HostingAdvice content for clarity, accuracy, and reader engagement.

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Sean Garrity PJ Fancher Hosting Expert
“We tested InMotion & Liquid Web — The winner is InMotion!”

Picking a web host can feel like shoe shopping. The plan you purchase will depend on your style, size, and what you plan to do with it. Liquid Web is most similar to a pair of high-performance running shoes. Its dedicated and VPS servers boast the fastest speeds available. For shoppers with different tastes, InMotion is almost like a pair of your favorite Keds. This classic host offers comfortable plans for every type of website. When it comes to web hosting, one size certainly does not fit all. Read our comparison below to see how we size these hosts up.

Overall Rating
4.9/5.0 ★★★★★
Visit InMotion »
Overall Rating
4.8/5.0 ★★★★★
Visit Liquid Web »

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Overall Hosting Comparison

Best Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0

Offering a wider range of services than most — including shared, dedicated, VPS, and even WordPress-specific plans — InMotion Hosting features a great combination of industry-leading hardware, always-there support, and mass scalability for all hosting needs.

InMotion Hosting has ultra-modern SSD drives on its shared plans, which give an added speed boost to your site. If a little extra speed is worth a few dollars more a month, then InMotion is a good choice for you. 

The company's customer service and reputation are excellent in the shared space, though InMotion tends to be a bit higher priced than some competitors.

In testing InMotion servers and account backends ourselves, there are a few things InMotion does that we especially appreciate.

First and foremost, we like to see free and automated backups included with each plan, as data security is vitally important.

The company also offers zero-downtime site transfers, which makes switching to InMotion or between its hosting plans a breeze.

Finally, multiple datacenters and the ability to choose which will house your site appeals to speed freaks like us.

Regardless of your hosting needs, InMotion seems to have your bases covered. If you value great hardware and support, all at a reasonable price, we highly recommend InMotion as your next host.

  • FREE SSD drives included with all hosting plans
  • Zero-downtime website transfers and migrations
  • FREE backups, SSL, and DDoS protection
  • Choice of East Coast or West Coast datacenter
  • Multi-language support for PHP, Ruby, and Perl
  • Get started on InMotion now.
Money Back Guarantee
90 days
Disk Space
100 GB SSD - Unlimited
Domain Name
FREE (1 year)

Best Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.8/5.0

We've gotten to know a few key members of the Liquid Web team personally, and let us tell you: The passion they put into talking about their products hints that this is a company worth checking out.

Liquid Web boasts supreme uptime, always-there-for-you support, and a constant commitment to building out more functionality for the customer. Liquid Web has a redundantly built, multi-tiered network with four datacenters in the United States, plus one more in Amsterdam.

The company takes advantage of all the latest technologies on the market and owns all of its hardware, giving Liquid Web more control over the options it can offer clients.

Liquid Web has three main tracks for managed hosting, not including managed WordPress and WooCommerce solutions. You pay a small monthly premium for managed hosting, but the peace of mind you get in exchange is priceless.

With Liquid Web taking over the infrastructure management, you're free to focus on what really matters: your content and/or your customers. Customers can easily install popular blogging software and eCommerce tools through the ever-popular and easy-to-use cPanel.

Users get unlimited email accounts, secure access with SSH, and really fast page loads thanks to SSD storage. Should disaster strike or questions come up, you are never alone.

Within minutes, you can be on the line with a highly trained technician who will be well-equipped to walk you through any hosting dilemma. Liquid Web's best-effort support policy means the company will try to help any way possible, even if it requires work outside of traditional services.

The bottom line: If you're ready for the real deal in web hosting — high-powered hardware and a team you can count on — you should consider Liquid Web. Based on our experience, it's really no surprise customers consistently vouch for Liquid Web managed hosting.

  • Heroic Support® and fully managed hosting
  • Linux or Windows options with cPanel, InterWorx, or Plesk
  • Industry leader in customer loyalty and NPS score
  • Servers proven faster than AWS and Rackspace
  • 100% uptime guarantee plus built-in backups
  • Get started on Liquid Web now.
Money Back Guarantee
30 days
Disk Space
40 GB SSD - 200 GB SSD
Domain Name
New or Transfer

Cheap Hosting Comparison

Cheap Rating

★★★★★ 4.7/5.0

#6 out of 10 in Cheap Hosting reviews

InMotion Hosting offers an excellent business-class shared hosting plan — with a price tag lower than several other budget hosts.

For the IT crowd in the audience, you’ll appreciate SSH access, as well as support for PHP, Ruby, Perl, Python, WP-CLI, and other popular languages.

You’ll also appreciate the 20-times faster speed, which comes from all-SSD storage and your choice of datacenter locations.

You needn’t worry about data security, as InMotion plans include automatic data backups.

For the rest of us, we can appreciate the convenience of the free website transfers and 24/7 US-based support.

A free domain registration and WordPress website builder with eCommerce support are also appealing.

The overall package and business-class hardware make InMotion’s shared hosting a great choice for businesses or those looking for a little higher-end hardware.

And, as one of the few remaining independently owned hosting providers left on the market, InMotion has taken every effort to remain cost-competitive.

  • FREE BoldGrid site builder and templates
  • FREE website, domain, and cPanel migrations
  • SSD storage makes your site load up to 20x faster
  • Security suite includes SSL and hack protection
  • Unlimited bandwidth and email accounts
  • Get started on InMotion now.
Money Back Guarantee
90 days
Disk Space
100 GB SSD - Unlimited SSD
Domain Name
FREE (1 year)

Cheap Rating

N/A

Liquid Web does not currently offer this type of hosting. We would not recommend choosing this host for this hosting category.

Dedicated Hosting Comparison

Dedicated Rating

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0

#1 out of 8 in Dedicated Hosting reviews

InMotion Hosting offers amazingly fast and reliable dedicated hosting on market-leading hardware — making it an easy choice for anyone seeking a premium dedicated server host.

From free SSDs to a fanatical support team, InMotion has all the bases covered for both small-scale and large-scale operations.

Unlike some hosts, InMotion gives SSH and root access to its servers. Each plan comes in bare metal or fully managed flavors. The latter includes two to four hours of dedicated time with a system administrator, which is an excellent help in getting your site configured to meet your needs.

Managed servers also come set up with free cPanel and WHM for easy management, while unmanaged server operators can choose among CentOS, Debian, or Ubuntu operating systems.

Plenty of CPU power, RAM, and storage come with each plan, as well as lots of dedicated IP addresses.

Perhaps our favorite feature of InMotion is the company's zero-downtime, rebootless kernel updates, which are partially the reason for InMotion's superb 99.999% uptime.

InMotion has a 30-day money-back guarantee on their dedicated plans, which is fairly rare and just another reason you can’t go wrong selecting the company as your dedicated host.

  • Bare-metal or managed servers available
  • 1-on-1 time with a server administrator
  • 99.99% uptime via Smart Routing™ technology
  • Tier 1 network with redundant bandwidth
  • SSH root access and DDoS protection on all servers
  • Upgrade for cPanel, migration, and auto backups
  • Get started on InMotion now.
Money Back Guarantee
30 days
Disk Space
1 TB SSD - 3.2 TB SSD
Domain Name
New or Transfer

Dedicated Rating

★★★★★ 4.8/5.0

#3 out of 8 in Dedicated Hosting reviews

Liquid Web's strong suit is managed dedicated server hosting. The company owns and operates five state-of-the-art datacenters in the US and Europe works tirelessly to build and maintain custom solutions for added performance and security.

Liquid Web offers single- and dual-processor servers with fully, core-, or self-managed plans. Each machine comes with at least 250 GB of high-performance solid-state drive storage and a 1TB SATA drive for backup.

The company's allocated RAM and bandwidth outpace competitors and give customers luxurious environments primed for speed. Site owners can further upgrade RAM and disk size, as well as capitalize on add-ons for a cPanel Premier 100 control panel, advanced DDoS protection, and enhanced security.

Featuring top-of-the-line Cisco equipment, the Liquid Web n+1 network is redundantly built to allow routing devices to quickly self-heal. They're designed to bounce back and correct system failures without interrupting the customer's connection.

With the integration of premier providers, Level 3, Verizon, Comcast, Cogent, and Equinix, the Liquid Web network is optimized for rapid and fault-resistant performance.

If you want feature-rich dedicated resources and relentlessly reliable technical support, Liquid Web should be on your shortlist.

The company is known for strong managed service offerings, but the drawback to managed hosting is usually the cost, but Liquid Web's monthly rate for managed services is quoted as low as $20, which is a steal. Plus, a 24/7 support team and in-house solutions keep the cloud-level flexibility and performance up and the cost down.

  • Linux or Windows with choice of 3 control panels
  • 100% network and power uptime guarantees
  • Custom configurations and instant provisioning
  • Auto-migrations, backups, and real-time monitoring
  • Block/object storage and load balancer add-ons
  • Get started on Liquid Web now.
Money Back Guarantee
N/A
Disk Space
480 GB SSD - 960 GB SSD (+ 2 TB SATA)
Domain Name
New or Transfer

VPS Hosting Comparison

VPS Rating

★★★★★ 4.6/5.0

#7 out of 9 in VPS Hosting reviews

Boasting market-leading VPS hardware, slick management software, and free SSD drives and backups, InMotion Hosting competes to win when it comes to managed VPS hosting packages.

The host initiates its VPS customer relationship with free website migrations and up to two hours of launch assistance from an experienced sysadmin.

Customers then enjoy highly available servers, seamless scalability options, and premium support — at a fair price.

Enjoy SSD storage arranged in a RAID-6 array, DDoS attack prevention powered by Corero, and routine server snapshots and rollback options.

Performance and security are clearly priorities for this hosting company. When it comes to bandwidth, disk space, and other usage allowances, we found these VPS packages to be competitive with other industry leaders.

All plans run on the CentOS Linux operating system and feature a license for cPanel and WHM, making it super easy to resell some unused server resources, too.

Ultimately, InMotion Hosting's reputation for uptime is second to none.

With a solid track record as a large-scale host, the company's sweet spot is found in its virtual, cloud, and dedicated server offerings. Should you get stuck, the support team is available 24/7.

Based on our experience, we'd highly recommend InMotion to those seeking flexible/easily configurable and cost-competitive virtual private servers backed by equally available support.

  • HostingAdvice readers get 67% off the first term
  • FREE site migrations and 2 hours of Launch Assist
  • 2 - 3 dedicated IP address options
  • FREE cPanel/WHM licenses included
  • Highly available servers with real-time redundancy
  • Get started on InMotion now.
Money Back Guarantee
90 days
Disk Space
90 GB SSD - 360 GB SSD
Domain Name
FREE (1 year)

VPS Rating

★★★★★ 4.5/5.0

#9 out of 9 in VPS Hosting reviews

It's no secret by now that Liquid Web is known for best-in-class technology and reliability that exceeds expectations. The company's cloud VPS environments embody that reputation to its fullest — including managed WordPress and WooCommerce products.

Liquid Web offers a high-powered cloud VPS solution backed by the company's popular SLAs promising high uptime rates and highly reliable help from the Heroic Support® experts.

With high-powered SSDs and, of course, the Heroic Support® team, the VPS platform shines among the managed services offered at Liquid Web.

You'll pay a bit of a premium for managed hosting, but there's a reason customers rave about Liquid Web's hands-free management, incredible SLAs, and excellent uptime rates.

RAID-protected SSD storage, which decreases latency and keeps your page loads fast and secure, comes standard for Liquid Web VPS users. The company offers a range of management plans, as well as the choice of popular control panels and API access, so you get the perfect level of infrastructural management support for you and your site.

The Liquid Web VPS infrastructure was engineered with customer priorities in mind. These solutions are ideal for users who want cloud-like flexibility. Customers can instantly provision and deploy their virtual server, then easily upgrade, downgrade, clone, or resize.

If you want easy scaling, screaming-fast speed, custom functionalities, and unparalleled support, look no further than Liquid Web for your VPS. The company owns all the hardware and boasts large development team, so the technological possibilities are pretty much limitless.

  • High-speed hosting that's faster than AWS, Rackspace, and Digital Ocean
  • FREE backups, CDN, and DDoS protection
  • Up to 16 processors with all-SSD storage
  • Choice between cPanel, Plesk, or InterWorx
  • Real-time monitoring and 100% uptime guarantee
  • Get started on Liquid Web now.
Money Back Guarantee
N/A
Disk Space
40 GB SSD - 200 GB SSD
Domain Name
New or Transfer

WordPress Hosting Comparison

WordPress Rating

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0

#4 out of 8 in WordPress Hosting reviews

InMotion Hosting, long known for affordable and high-performance shared hosting options, entered the WordPress space with a solid option built upon the company's reputation for great support and reliability.

Build on an all-SSD infrastructure, InMotion's inherently quick speeds make the infrastructure a perfect fit for delivering rapid WordPress page loads.

Options like integrated staging help take full advantage of the nice, modern hardware, and ample server caching tools are a good perk.

The choice of datacenters (East or West) is nice, as well, as it allows you to target your local audience with better load times.

InMotion offers four levels to its WordPress hosting offerings, which allows you to tailor the hosting to your needs or budget.

For those needing ecommerce support, the company's middle or top offerings have you covered, while all three include InMotion's drag-and-drop BoldGrid page editor.

Each hosting package InMotion offers comes with a free domain, unlimited disk space, unlimited emails, and free data backups for data security.

If you need it, each plan also has support for PHP, Ruby, Perl, and Python, and includes SSH access.

InMotion Hosting has made a name for itself on support and reliability. While not the cheapest of the budget WordPress hosts, the packages offered are solid in performance and feature sets.

  • Up to 12x faster WordPress hosting
  • FREE SSL certificate and SSD storage
  • Automatic WordPress plugin, theme, and core updates
  • Features a FREE drag-and-drop WP page editor
  • Premium themes and plugin subscriptions
  • Get started on InMotion now.
Money Back Guarantee
90 days
Disk Space
100 GB - Unlimited SSD
Domain Name
FREE (1 year)

WordPress Rating

★★★★★ 4.6/5.0

Among the latest additions to the company's product portfolio, Liquid Web's managed WordPress and WooCommerce hosting solutions is delivered by the WordPress specialists at Nexcess.

The fully managed support rids site owners of the responsibility of maintaining core installs and updates, as well as monitoring the server infrastructure. You run your WordPress blog or business, Liquid Web and Nexcess will run the rest.

Unlike other premium WordPress hosts like WP Engine or Flywheel, Liquid Web does not build packages around bandwidth usage or monthly visitors. Each package is allocated ample SSD storage and bandwidth to more than power the number of sites allowed.

There are no upcharges for increases in traffic, and site owners can quickly add resources with just a call. Instead of WP MultiSite, Liquid Web partnered with iThemes to provide site owners with iThemes Sync Pro.

Site administrators can oversee multiple sites from one intuitive dashboard, gaining insights from uptime and downtime, Google Analytics, and SEO performance. WordPress is a favorite recommendation of ours for both personal and professional websites.

When you combine the flexibility and intuitiveness of WordPress with the best-in-class infrastructure and support of Liquid Web and Nexcess, you've got a match made in hosting heaven. The company's managed WordPress and WooCommerce hosting plans are going to give you all the performance and customization you want without the frustration.

If you're thinking of building a WordPress site, you should consider letting Liquid Web and Nexcess help you do it.

  • Speedy WP-optimized hosting delivered by Nexcess
  • FREE Object Cache Pro, image compression, and CDN
  • Unlimited page views and no overage charges
  • Automatic plugin updates and performance monitoring
  • FREE premium plugins and advanced PHP support
  • Get started on Liquid Web now.
Money Back Guarantee
30 days
Disk Space
15 GB - 800 GB
Domain Name
New or Transfer

Site Builder Hosting Comparison

Website Builder Rating

★★★★★ 4.8/5.0

If you're aiming to build a dynamic, user-oriented website — an active blog, a photo gallery, an ecommerce store — check out InMotion Hosting.

The InMotion team is extremely knowledgeable in the hosting industry, and they're attuned to the ever-evolving needs of the end-user — from the ultra-novice to the über-experienced.

Evidence of the team's attention to user needs can be found in BoldGrid. The proprietary website builder platform was received so well by the market that InMotion decided to spin the web builder off into its own company.

BoldGrid functions on top of WordPress, bringing intuitiveness and ease of use to a content management environment notorious for bringing beginners frustration.

With hundreds of templates and a nice WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, getting started with a new site is a fairly quick and easy process. You can play around with the plethora of site templates, preview the site that could soon be yours, and get a feel for which look most closely matches your intended design or brand.

BoldGrid comes free on all of InMotion's shared hosting packages, which come with all the essential hosting goodies and some of the best support money can buy.

Each plan offers powerful hardware, a free domain name, and free data backups — that last one being an extremely valuable feature.

InMotion does have lengthy signup periods for their best deals, but they offer a 90-day money-back guarantee to help you feel confident that they are the right host for you.

  • FREE site builder comes with all WordPress plans
  • FREE domain with tons of options to customize and scale
  • 200+ easy-to-edit blog, gallery, and ecommerce themes
  • Customizable templates come with industry-specific starter content
  • Easy SEO tools and mobile-friendly designs
  • Get started on InMotion now.
Money Back Guarantee
90 days
Disk Space
100 GB SSD - Unlimited SSD
Domain Name
FREE (1 year)

Website Builder Rating

N/A

Liquid Web does not currently offer this type of hosting. We would not recommend choosing this host for this hosting category.

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InMotion vs. Liquid Web - Our Conclusion

Sean Garrity PJ Fancher Hosting Expert
“We tested InMotion & Liquid Web — The winner is InMotion!”

Liquid Web and InMotion offer some pretty impressive hosting features. Liquid Web’s dedicated servers will help you cross the finish line in record-breaking time with a 100% uptime guarantee. But InMotion’s versatile plans offer super fast WordPress hosting, free SSL certificate, and automatic updates. Check out our full reviews if you’re having trouble picking the best host.

Overall Rating
4.9/5.0 ★★★★★
Visit InMotion »
Overall Rating
4.8/5.0 ★★★★★
Visit Liquid Web »

About The Author

PJ Fancher is a professional web developer with more than 20 years of experience. His background began with writing small web applications using Perl, PHP, and MySQL in 1998. He has well-rounded experience with all aspects of web development, from server and database configuration to scripting, styling, design, and SEO. Today he brings his passion for web development to the team at Digital Brands Inc., helping to develop unique, high-quality, highly-optimized websites. He is ready to share his extensive knowledge and experience with the world of web hosting.
Sean Garrity